


Like a fistful of promises

by Fatale (femme)



Category: White Collar
Genre: Implied Relationships, Multi, Threesome - F/M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-28
Updated: 2013-04-28
Packaged: 2017-12-09 20:46:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 784
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/777817
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/femme/pseuds/Fatale
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>His mom once called him a dreamer. She was right, but Neal figures it was more of a lucky guess than any kind of real personal insight.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Like a fistful of promises

Like a fistful of promises  
Neal pov.  
Implied (heavily, like, absolutely necessary to get this fic) established Peter/El/Neal  
PG - minimal cursing, huzzah!  
WC: 780

 

 

Sometimes Neal can’t sleep - a strange holdover from nights spent crossing international time zones too quickly to get acclimated to the different hours; a habit that never seems to change, no matter how long he calls one place home.

He has other bad habits. Not many, but the few he does have are so bad they probably count for a lot.

Like tracking jewel heists, (slight) money laundering, compulsively breaking into Peter’s emails and reading them. He’s pretty sure Peter knows about the last one, but Peter never changes his password, so that’s something.

He keeps a suitcase under the bed with three changes of clothes, a jacket, socks and underwear. There are four passports, each with a different name but the same picture and one passport with a photo of him with an ill-advised droopy mustache, one of Mozzie’s crappier ideas. Neal privately thinks he might as well be wearing a sombrero and holding mariachis for all the subtlety the mustache adds, but it’s a clean identity, unused and untagged by the FBI.

The suitcase gets moved occasionally, never more than half an inch either way, but Neal notices that dust never seems to settle on it and underneath is always clean.

Peter and El never mention it to him and he doesn’t ask.

 

*

 

Once a month, he tucks a plain envelope of un-marked non-sequential bills in the side pocket of the suitcase. It’s getting pretty full, but Neal still has to tamp down the uneasy feeling of, _it’s not enough_.

His mom once called him a dreamer. She was right, but Neal figures it was more of a lucky guess than any kind of real personal insight.

Dreaming is not about danger or the absence of it, which is what she never understood. The urge to run, to dream, to taste absolute freedom, it thrums in his veins, violent and unsettling and oppressive, always present.

Even when he has nowhere to go. Especially then.

 

*

 

His suitcase has been under the bed for nearly six months when he opens it to see a dress -- the electric blue wrap dress that brings out El’s eyes. It’s his favorite, which he’s told El each time she wears it.

He feels --

He’s not sure. Neal leaves the dress and slips the envelope of Burmese kyats beneath it, the silky fabric sliding over his fingers like a caress.

 

*

 

Peter’s tie shows up next.

Then another dress.

Then a suit.

 

*

 

There’s a framed photo on the bookcase - a vacation photo with Peter grinning and El behind him, arms looped around his shoulders. Neal plans to get it back before anyone notices its absence.

His fingers linger over the photo a little, something large and indefinable in his chest, a little like pain, a little like wistfulness, too confusing and complicated to put a proper name to. It’s like when Peter and El have silent arguments, eyes narrowed and lips thinned, and how they make up with small touches and sighs.

Neal wonders if he’ll ever be part of something so gloriously messy.

Three days later and he has two perfect passports under different names and tucks them in-between his and a thick envelope of Russian rubles.

The suitcase is full to bursting and he has to lean down hard to get the damn thing to zip closed.

 

*

 

Neal takes out an outfit to make room for another of Peter’s suits. He picks out his favorite from Peter’s closet and folds it carefully on top of his.

Peter never asks about his suit (he must note its absence, though, the man only has five), but a week later, Peter asks him if he wants to go help him pick out a new one, which Neal has been dying to do _forever_.

He’s always thought Peter would look great in Balenciaga. It may take more sexual favors than he’s got in his repetoir to make Peter drop that much on a suit, but it’s not beneath him to try.

Neal might pick up socks while he’s out and some underwear for Peter. He thinks there might be a little room in the suitcase for that.

 

*

 

Some nights when sleep is an elusive thing, twisting gently just out of his reach, he can roll to the very edge of the bed, sling his arm down over the side and skate his fingers along the closed zipper, the teeth bumpy beneath the pads of his fingers, straining but strong. It’ll hold.

His heart beats steady in his chest.

He closes his eyes and sleeps.

 

 

 

 

The end.


End file.
